MR&D Forum Meeting 2008
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Please join us for the third annual Mark Minasi Technical Forum Meeting.
We will once again be meeting in beautiful Virginia Beach, VA to learn new
technologies, share ideas, and meet the people that have become our online
friends.

Hosted by Mark Minasi and
organized by Eric B.
Rux, this meeting will have in depth talks on Windows Server 2008,
Exchange 2007, Windows Home Server (WHS), Windows Vista as well as other hot
topics. You won't want to miss this!!

Dates:
Sunday, April 20th 2008 through Wednesday, April 23rd. We recommend that
you fly in on Saturday, although sessions start midday Sunday.

Speakers

Anne Grubb

Anne Grubb is
Web site strategic editor for the Windows IT Pro publications (Windows IT
Pro, SQL Server Magazine, and the Pro VIP content sites). She started her
career writing software user manuals in the days of CP/M and MS-DOS.
Fortunately, she was able to leave technical writing behind and has spent
most of her professional life writing and editing magazine and online
articles for IT professionals.

Don Jones

Don Jones is a nationally-recognized author, instructor, speaker, and
consultant, with more than a decade of experience in the Information
Technology industry, and with a strong focus on Microsoft-centric solutions.
Don is the author of nearly two dozen published works on IT subjects, is a
regular speaker at national conferences like Windows Connections, Microsoft
TechEd, and TechMentor, is a past Contributing Editor and columnist for
REDMOND Magazine, and is a regular columnist for Microsoft TechNet Magazine.

Dons field experience includes work in a diverse selection of industries,
including telecommunications, retail, online retail, manufacturing, and more.
Don has extensive management experience, enabling him to speak not only to
technical audiences, but also director and C-level audiences.

Don is a multiple-year recipient of Microsoft's Most Valuable Professional
award in recognition of his advocacy of scripting and automation,
specifically for Windows PowerShell. Don currently serves as the Director of
Projects and Services for SAPIEN Technologies, where he manages the company's
Publishing, Training, and Community divisions.

Rhonda Layfield

Rhonda Layfield has been in the IT community for 25 years. She began her
IT carreer in the US Navy as a communications specialist holding a top secret
clearance. She is now an independent consultant and trainer who develops and
teaches her own curriculum on Various Microsoft and VMWare Technologies.
Rhonda has a passion for learning products at the packet level and sharing
that knowledge in her classes with some of the most prestigious organizations
and corporations around the world. Some of which include Dow Jones, the US
Airforce, the US Army, IBM, Bank of America, Wachovia, Bell Atlantic and EDS.
She is currently an NT/2000/2003 MCSE and MCT. Along with teaching she enjoys
presenting at national conferences (TechMentor and Windows Connections) and
contributing articles to various technical magazines and is also a co-author
of Mastering Windows Server 2003 Upgrade Edition for SP1 & R2.

Mark Minasi

Mark Minasi is
a best-selling author, popular technology columnist, commentator, keynote
speaker, and all-around alpha geek. What separates him from many of the other
alpha geeks, however, is that he knows how to explain things to normal humans
and often make them laugh while doing it. That's reflected in his
recent Reader's Choice award for "Favorite Technical Author" at
CertCities. More testimony to his popularity with tech world came at a
recent SearchWin2000 webcast on tuning computers. At that webcast, Mark
drew three times as many attendees as any previous webcast, crashing Yahoo!'s
servers.

He is probably
best known for his books in the Mastering series (Mastering Windows
Server 2003,Mastering Windows NT Server, Mastering Windows 2000 Server,
Mastering XP Professional, etc) and his perennial hardware PC repair and
fix-it book The Complete PC Upgrade and Maintenance Guide, now in its
13th edition. His monthly columns in Windows and .NET Magazine are
among the best-read
in the periodical. Mark has also authored 19 other technology books,
spoken on technical topics in 20 countries, and written and performed in a
dozen technical education videos.

Jeremy
Mosowitz

Jeremy
Moskowitz, MCSE, MCSA, founder of Moskowitz, Inc. (www.moskowitz-inc.com), is an
independent consultant and trainer for Group Policy and Active Directory. His
two-day, hands-on intensive Group Policy training has been attended by many
of the worlds leading companies. He runs www.GPanswers.com,
a community forum to answer tough Group Policy questions. He speaks at IT
conferences and inside corporations all over the world. Since becoming one of
the worlds first MCSEs on both Windows NT and Windows 2000, he has performed
Active Directory, Group Policy, Windows infrastructure, and SMS planning and
implementation for some of the nations largest organizations. Jeremy has two
very popular books on Group Policy, some chapters which are available in
eBook format (January 2008). Learn more about it at www.GPanswers.com/book.

Eric
B. Rux

Eric B. Rux is cofounder of www.WHSHelp.com.
His monthly column Coming Home to Windows Home Server can be read at
www.connectedhomemag.com. Eric is a senior Windows administrator for a large
bill-management company and teaches the Microsoft Certified Systems
Administrator (MCSA) program at a local tech college.

Greg Shields

Greg Shields, MCSE, CCEA, is an independent author, speaker, and
consultant based in Denver, Colorado. With more than 10 years of
experience in information technology, Greg has developed extensive experience
in systems administration, engineering, and architecture specializing in
Microsoft, Citrix, and VMware technologies. Greg is a Contributing
Editor for both Redmond Magazine and Microsoft Certified Professional
Magazine, authoring two regular columns along with dozens of feature
articles, webcasts, and white papers. He is also the Resident Editor
for Realtime Publishers Windows Server Community at http://www.realtime-windowsserver.com.
Greg is a highly sought-after instructor and speaker, where among other
endeavors he teaches system and network troubleshooting curriculum for
TechMentor Events, a twice-annual IT conference, and produces computer-based
training curriculum for CBT Nuggets on numerous topics. Greg recently
released his latest book, Windows Server 2008: Whats New / Whats
Changed: http://www.sapienpress.com/Windows_Server_08.asp

Curt Spanburgh

Curt Spanburgh is a consultant/system engineer for Solutions Consulting Group,
a Microsoft Business Solutions Gold Partner in Southern California. He has
worked with Microsoft applications for more than 15 years and monitors a
Microsoft Business Solutions forum on the Mark Minasi Help Forum at
http://www.Minasi.com.

He has worked with Microsoft Dynamics CRM since Beta 1.0 and
Dynamics Great Plains since 1998. He has been published in Windows IT
Pro Magazine. Solutions Consulting Group provides ERP and CRM solutions for
the Southwest United States.

James Summerlin

James Summerlin is 33 years old and has been working with computers since
1997. He has a bachelor's of science in Computer Science from the University
of North Carolina at Wilmington and currently consultants for small to medium
sized offices - mostly in the medical field. James Summerlin works for
Professional Data Management, Inc. located in Goldsboro, North Carolina.

Nathan Winters

Nathan
Winters is a Unified Communications Consultant for Dimension Data; a
Microsoft Gold Partner on five continents whose clients include over 70% of
the Global Fortune 100. Nathan has been working in I.T. for four years and
specializes in Exchange, Active Directory and Virtualisation. Recent work has
included an Exchange 2007 design for a 2000 user network and a large
multisite migration from GroupWise 6.5 to Exchange 2003.

Midway
through 2006 Nathan founded the Microsoft Messaging and
Mobility User Group UK which holds regular meetings in the UK to discuss
topics related to Exchange. In April 2007 Nathan was awarded an MVP (Exchange
Server) for his work with MMMUG and regular contributions to the Mark Minasi
Forum. Nathan is a regular contributor to the MSExchange.org website
and Nathans other articles have been published by Penton
Media (Exchange and Outlook Administrator newsletter), Microsoft (TechNet
Industry Insiders) and on the MMMUG website.

When registering, please say that you are with the "Minasi
group," so that you will receive the best rate. Room rates are
$120/night. (That doesn't count the usual heavy slathering of added
Federal, state, county, city, street and other taxes, of course.)

Travel

Virginia Beach is in the southeastern corner of Virginia. It is the
42nd most populous US city, outpacing such better-known cities as Oakland, Omaha,
Miami, Raleigh, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and many others. (This irritates
those cities, but inasmuch as VAB contains the huge Oceania Naval Airbase, we
are fully prepared to retaliate to any attempts to knock us off our beloved
42nd spot.)

To fly to Virginia Beach, go to either the Norfolk International Airport
(airport code ORF, Web site http://www.norfolkairport.com)
and from there it's about a 35 minute taxi ride that'll cost about $50, not
including tip. Or fly into Newport News / Williamsburg airport (http://www.nnwairport.com), which is
smaller and about 45 minutes' drive further. (Sorry, we don't have a
guess on the cost of ground transport from Newport News.)

Registration

We're charging $450/head to cover meeting room expenses, duplication
expenses and the dinner at Mark's farm one evening. While the registration
fee is a bit more than last year, the hotel is cheaper. When you add in the
hotel and the registration fee, the total charge is only $50 more than last
year. Click here
to register. It's the "seminar registration" page because it
was just easier and cheaper to put the registration on that page. Just
be sure to choose the "MR&D 2008 Forum Meeting." (ifyou are unable to register online, please email Jean Snead below).
You can pay with checks, purchase orders and credit cards, but in any case we
need payment before the event, and thanks for your help... and for joining
us! (And if you're coming from outside of the US or Canada, then just
ignore the need for a zip code, apologies -- we're using the software that we
use for our public seminars, which only take place in the US and
Canada. Just punch in anything for a zip. The credit card system
won't work either because of the zip code issue, but if you e-mail Jean Snead
(assistant@minasi.com) then she can
handle a credit card manually. Apologies for the trouble, again thanks
for joining us!)